On a good day her room was a mess. On a bad day it was a health hazard.

"She was a bowerbird," Tim said. "She kept everything."

In her room she kept a box filled with letters and notes, promises to herself. "I am going to try my hardest and never give up. I'm going to be successful, confident and smarter," she wrote in one.

On Sunday morning, as police cut Sam's broken body from the unrecognisable wreck of the "borrowed" car - in which she died with friend Zara Simon, 17 - Tim, his wife and two youngest were on a ferry on the way to Sydney's Watsons Bay.

They'd tried to convince Sam to come but she wanted to be home when her boyfriend, Aiden, arrived home from a five-week trip to America.

"She was counting down the hours until she saw him and I remember she was walking around the kitchen with this beautiful postcard he'd sent her," Michelle said.

She'd spent the weekend with elder sister Jayme-Lee, who'd taken Sam shopping for steak and vegetables.

Jayme-Lee said: "What I'll miss most about Sam is that we had the same sense of humour.

"Now when I laugh, I still feel like she's there with me, laughing too. I wasn't always the best role model for her. But maybe I can change that - if she's still watching."

That night Sam slept in the spare bed in Jayme-Lee's room. On Saturday morning, she hitched a ride to work with her big sister. The girls laughed the whole way.

Less than 24 hours later, in Sydney, Tim's phone rang.

It was the neighbours. The police had been to the house looking for him.

News.com.au's Privacy Policy includes important information about our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information (including to provide you with targeted content and advertising based on your online activities). It explains that if you do not provide us with information we have requested from you, we may not be able to provide you with the goods and services you require. It also explains how you can access or seek correction of your personal information, how you can complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with a complaint of that nature.